New Openings

Like the first day of school.

Laying out my clothes the night before, my Service Works trousers nice and clean, planning and rechecking the route from home to the new restaurant, confirming the absences of strikes or diversions, preparing my belongings. I stand in my little kitchen at 10pm, lit by the dim, greasy light of my extraction, gliding my most used knives over a whetstone, willing them not to embarrass me in my first week by butchering my brunoise into wet mulch (then again, you cannot hide behind a sharp blade – what if it’s a skill issue??).

I crouch on my bedroom floor, my knife roll unfurled, rearranging and reprioritising my knives and tools - yes, you can come along to this new adventure, no, you’ve had your time - adding the new purchases I have anxiously hunted down last week, not wanting to get exposed as the amateur that, deep in my heart, I know I am. A nicer pair of scissors, a small descaler, even (to my own dismay at what kind of chef I am becoming) a small pair of tweezers. My battered chef clogs sit tiredly in a plastic bag. A few fresh Sharpies are arranged neatly on my desk, ready to be pocketed in the morning.

I sleep little that night. My subconscious drags me out of my sleep every other hour, telling me that it is high time to get up now, that I am going to be late for my first day, how embarrassing (it is 2am). Inbetween those bursts of anxious wakefulness, my dreams regale me with scenarios of my inevitable delayed arrival, and highly imaginative and richly embellished episodes of gut-wrenching humiliations. After a few hours of this eventful rest, my real alarm goes off. I dress, pack my knife roll, clogs, and Sharpies, and leave to catch the tube that will get me there - thankfully - more than half an hour early.

The first-day-of-school feeling persists.

The chefs arrive. We greet each other with a shy eagerness, anxiously observing everyone’s movements and doings and gestures and phrases out of the corner of our eyes, quietly taking in our surroundings, this new restaurant space, like a new toy, suddenly exposed to the air after ripping off the protective film, with its unadulterated, nascent smell, a smell of freshly sawed wood and paint and plastic. What smells will they be replaced with, we wonder.

Charcoal and woodfire certainly, and garlic, the usual suspects. Perhaps, too, scents of dried herbs, roasted meats dripping with fat and thick glazes, lemon zest and olive oil, of onions slowly sweating in butter, or fresh yeast and toasted flour, of beer and liqueur, of sweat and expensive perfumes, fur coats and leather shoes, the odd wave of tobacco, carried in from the Soho streets as the doors open and close, of the menus, the paper still warm from the printer, of spilled wine, freshly polished plates, of candles blown out by loud laughter, of soap and degreaser, and the smell of dirty laundry being carried out at the end of the night – but not yet. Just a clean, yet-to-be-human space, ready for this wide-eyed new team to take up their positions.

The bustle begins hesitantly. We don’t yet know our way around the corridors, the corners, the shelves, the drawers. Every task takes forever as we navigate ourselves and our surroundings. We feel quite stupid, frankly. Maybe we shouldn’t be here at all, whose idea was it anyway to get us, this small bunch, into this grand space, and what were we thinking, assuming we would fit in and do well, how silly we were. But we’re here now, so really we should be grateful and excited, this is what we have worked for after all, yes, this is exciting, but it’s also quite a lot, what if we’re not ready, but we shouldn’t even be thinking like that, there’s no time for this.

And while we feel stupid and lost and excited and grateful and guilty, trying to do our job and trying to find the things required to do our job, we catch a moment stood next to one another, working in the same corner together, stuck staring at the same shelf together. And now on top of the feeling of stupidity and confusion and incompetence, we’re curious and shy and suddenly awkward perhaps, how are you, who are you, where were you before, why are you here, how have you and I and them ended up here together in this tiny fridge, not knowing what we’re really looking for, let alone where to find it.

So here is the beginning, and the first day comes to an end and we stand in the queue for the small changing room, feeling like we know less than we knew at the start of the day, although, perhaps that’s not quite true; at least we know where to find the spatulas now and where the bins go and how the light changes in the restaurant as the sun sets and how the buttons feel on the new chef whites. And as we file out and wave our goodbyes, we remember some of the new names and think of one interaction where we probably came across a little awkward but then there was another moment when someone laughed at our joke, and everyone does actually seem very nice, we will probably make some good friendships here, so things probably won’t be too bad, and I do so deeply hope it’s we who harbour all of these many thoughts and worries - and not just me.

And my brunoise was good, I think. At least nobody said otherwise.